During the past nine years, Davey Blackburn has watched God take an “open wound” and turn it into “a scar that tells a story.” Now the Indianapolis pastor, whose wife and unborn child were murdered in 2015, is telling that story in an autobiography titled “Nothing Is Wasted.”
As ChurchLeaders has reported, 28-year-old Amanda Blackburn was shot and killed during an early-morning home invasion while her husband was at the gym. The couple’s 15-month-old son, Weston, was unharmed, but their unborn baby died.
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In a new interview with Inside Edition Digital, Davey Blackburn opened up about his road to recovery, forgiveness, and even racial reconciliation. The pastor, who has since remarried, also shares how his ministry celebrates Amanda’s legacy.
Pastor Davey Blackburn: Pinpointing ‘The Real Enemy’
The aftermath of Amanda’s murder was filled with “layer upon layer of…complexity,” according to Blackburn. Because the couple lived in a “very safe” neighborhood, the violent attack was shocking. The grieving pastor had to face a “media firestorm” while trying to care for his toddler and congregation. On top of that, many people initially considered him a suspect.
Blackburn also had to process difficult emotions toward the perpetrators, three Black teenagers who were all sentenced to jail. Forgiveness took time, because he initially wanted to unload on his wife’s killers. After choosing to forgive, the pastor said, “over time my heart [and] feelings began to catch up with that.”
Blackburn realized he had to practice what he had literally preached. “I had preached messages prior to all of this about how it’s important to forgive, that if you don’t forgive other people, then it becomes a cancer that rots you on the inside,” he said. “Then I was confronted with, ‘Davey, do you really believe what the Bible says, and do you really believe what you’re saying or what you say you believe?’”
Forgiveness was a choice at the beginning, Blackburn emphasized. “It wasn’t a feeling. I had to make a decision. I think that that is conventional wisdom for everybody. No matter what, if you don’t feel like forgiving, you’re not going to feel like forgiving. You have to choose and you have to make that daily decision.”
Murder Led to Struggles With Racism
In his autobiography, Blackburn is candid about struggling with feelings of hatred, prejudice, and racism after Amanda’s murder. Although he knew logically not to superimpose someone’s race with guilt, “it was very difficult to try to untangle that emotionally,” he admitted.
Thanks to conversations with a local Black pastor, Blackburn learned how to wrestle and reconcile with those emotions. “I think it’s really important for [pastors] to be vulnerable and to confess those things, because that’s the only way that true healing happens,” he said. “We can’t whitewash it and act like…we don’t actually have some of these kinds of feelings. We need to be honest about those feelings and then begin to get healing.”
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Blackburn continued, “Scripture says, ‘Confess your sin to one another so that you will be healed.’ That’s what it says. That’s why it was really important for me to make sure that that was included in the book, to lead the way in helping other people to be vulnerable and honest about their own feelings so they can heal as well.”
Reading victim-impact statements at each perpetrator’s sentencing also helped Blackburn break a “stronghold” in his heart. He was able to share who his wife was and let the men know they “stole…someone really beautiful in this world.”
Blackburn no longer channels hatred and bitterness to the three men “because I realized that they’re not my real enemy,” he said. “The real enemy is the mastermind behind all of it, Satan. But the way that I get vengeance on Satan in this whole thing is not let him fill me up with bitterness and unforgiveness.”
